Titan: Gaean Trilogy, Book 1

John Varley's monumental trilogy - Titan, Wizard, and Demon - has achieved cult status, hailed as a modern triumph of the imagination by critics and fans. It begins with humankind's exploration of a massive satellite orbiting Saturn. It culminates in a shocking discovery: the satellite is a giant alien being. Her name is Gaea. Her awesome interior is mind-boggling - because it is a mind. A mind that calls out to explorers...and transforms all who enter.

Wizard: Gaean Trilogy, Book 2

One of the greatest science-fiction epics ever written, John Varley's Titan, Wizard, and Demon comprise a groundbreaking trilogy that will live forever. Human explorers have entered the sprawling mind of the alien Gaea. Now they must fight her will. For she is much too powerful. And definitely insane....

Demon: Gaean Trilogy, Book 3

Titan, Wizard, and Demon have enthralled a generation of readers with adventure, humor, horror, and dazzling imagination. Now, in the epic conclusion of John Varley's masterpiece, the satellite-sized Gaea has gone completely insane. She has trapped humans in her mind. She has transformed her love of old movies into monstrous realities. She is Marilyn Monroe. She is King Kong. And she must be destroyed.

The Ophiuchi Hotline

The invaders came in 2050...they did not kill anyone outright. They said they came on behalf of the intelligent species of Earth - dolphins and whales. The invaders quietly destroyed every evidence of technology, then peacefully departed, leaving behind plowed ground and sprouting seeds. In the next two years, 10 billion humans starved to death.

The Engines of God

Humans call them Monument-Makers. An unknown race, they left stunning alien statues scattered on distant planets throughout the galaxy, encoded with strange inscriptions that defy translation. Searching for clues about the Monument-Makers, teams of 23rd century linguists, historians, engineers and archaeologists have been excavating the enigmatic alien ruins on a number of planets, uncovering strange, massive false cities made of solid rock. But their time is running out.

In the Ocean of Night: Galactic Center, Book 1

It is 2019. NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy it, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal….

Here Comes Earth: Emergence

Where did mankind really come from? Why are we here? We can't understand the past until we embrace the future. These critical mysteries take center stage as Earth emerges into a galactic society that is far more perilous than anyone could have imagined. Our history is far more complicated than we could have known. Can a few brilliant minds find a way out for Earth?

Hominids: The Neanderthal Parallax, Book 1

Neanderthals have developed a radically different civilization on a parallel Earth. A Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleo-anthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer, called a Companion, implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. But it can't help his fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder.

Sassinak: The Planet Pirates, Book 1

Sassinak was 12 when the raiders came. That made her just the right age: old enough to be used, young enough to be broken. Or so the slavers thought. But Sassy turned out to be a little different from your typical slave girl. Maybe it was her unusual physical strength. Maybe it was her friendship with the captured Fleet crewman. Maybe it was her spirit. Whatever it was, it wouldn't let her resign herself to the life of a slave. She bided her time, watched for her moment. Finally it came, and she escaped.

Star Corps: Book One of The Legacy Trilogy

Many millennia ago, the human race was enslaved by the An - a fearsome alien people whose cruel empire once spanned the galaxies, until they were defeated and consigned to oblivion. But a research mission to the planet Ishtar has made a terrifying - and fatal - discovery: The Ahanu, ancestors of the former masters, live on, far from the reach of Earth - born weapons and technology ... and tens of thousands of captive human souls still bow to their iron will.

One Day on Mars: Tau Ceti, Book 1

It's 24 on Mars: a non-stop futuristic thrill-ride, all in one day, through the critical events which were the breaking point for the underclass of Martian citizens and precipitated a revolution to break the Martian colonists free from the formidable Sol System government. The formerly red planet would never be the same would the human race.

Into the Black: Odyssey One

Captain Eric Weston and his crew encounter horrors, wonders, monsters, and people; all of which will test their resolve, challenge their abilities, and put in sharp relief what is necessary to be a hero. A first-rate military-science-fiction epic that combines old-school space opera and modern storytelling, Into the Black: Odyssey One is a riveting, exhilarating adventure with vivid details, rich mythology, and relentless pacing.

Gabriel’s Ghost: The Dock Five Universe Series, Book 1

After a decade of piloting interstellar patrol ships, former captain Chasidah Bergren, onetime pride of the Sixth Fleet, finds herself court-martialed for a crime she didn't commit and shipped off to a remote prison planet from which no one ever escapes. But when she kills a brutal guard in an act of self-defense, someone even more dangerous emerges from the shadows. Gabriel Sullivan alpha mercenary, smuggler, and rogue is supposed to be dead.

Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle

The world had become used to the metahumans - people sometimes perfectly ordinary, but sometimes quite extraordinary in appearance - who mostly worked with their governments as high-powered peace officers, fighting crime, and sometimes fighting rogue metahumans who had become super-criminals. Then that comfortable world ended in just one terrifying day.

Foreigner: Foreigner Sequence 1, Book 1

The first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.

The Golden Queen: The Golden Queen, Book 1

Insectoid Dronons have slain the queen Semarritte, throwing into chaos the ten thousand worlds over which she reigned. Desperate to save mankind, Lord Veriasse, Semarritte's near-immortal consort, has created a new queen: Everynne, cloned from her dead mother. Born to rule, Everynne instead is on the run, often only one planet ahead of advancing forces of the invaders, who recognize that Everynne is a powerful rallying point for threatened humanity.

Heart of the Comet

Prescient and scientifically accurate, Heart of the Comet is known as one of the great hard SF novels of the 1980s. First published in 1986, it tells the story of an ambitious manned mission to visit Halley's Comet, alter its orbit, and mine it for resources. But all too soon, native cells - that might once have brought life to Earth - begin colonizing the colonists. As factions battle over the comet's future - and that of Earth - only love, courage, and ingenuity can avert disaster and spark a new human destiny.

Boundary: Boundary Series, Book 1

A daring and resourceful paleontologist uncovers something at the infamous K-T boundary marking the end of dinosaurs in the fossil record - something big, dangerous, and absolutely, categorically impossible. It's a find that will catapult her to the Martian moon Phobos, then down to the crater-pocked desert of the Red Planet itself. For this mild-mannered fossil hunter may just have become Earth's first practicing xenobiologist!

River of Time

The River of Time brings together 12 of David Brin's stories, including "The Crystal Spheres", which won the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story in 1985. Here are powerful tales of heroism and humanity, playful excursions into realms of fancy, and profound meditations on time, memory, and our place in the universe. Who guides our fate? And can we ever hope to wrest control for ourselves?

Schism: Triad, Book 1

In 2002, Catherine Asaro won the Nebula Award for The Quantum Rose, the sixth novel in her Saga of the Skolian Empire. This very same novel was also named Best SF Novel by the Romantic Times. Schism: Part One of Triad is the 10th novel in this multiple award-winning series

Here, There Be Dragons

An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica: an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale.

Endeavour: Sleeping Gods, Book 1

In 2118 the first daring mission to another star, Tau Ceti - 12 light-years away - is launched. Tom Hites and Harry Cosgrove command the starship Endeavour on an epic journey to solve the Fermi paradox. From the first nearly disastrous steps on a distant world, their quest takes them further than they ever imagined.

Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue: The Bern Saga, Book 1

It wasn't easy for Molly being the only girl in Flight Academy, but getting expelled was even worse. Abandoned by her family when she was young and now tossed from the only home she's ever known, her future looks bleak.

But then Molly hears that her father's old starship has turned up halfway across the galaxy. Setting off to retrieve the old craft, she hopes it will hold clues to his disappearance. Accompanying her as a chaperone is Cole, her old flight partner from the Academy.

The Puppet Masters

At key points throughout North America, an invasion force is taking over communications, government, industry, and people's bodies. And the nation is helpless to stop it, because the invaders multiply far faster than they can be destroyed, controlling the mind of every unsuspecting person they encounter. Enter Sam Cavanaugh, a can-do intelligence officer for the United States' most secret service. Cavanaugh is the only man who can stop the invaders. But to do that he'll have to be invaded himself.

Publisher's Summary

John Varley's monumental trilogy - Titan, Wizard, and Demon - has achieved cult status, hailed as a modern triumph of the imagination by critics and fans.

It begins with humankind's exploration of a massive satellite orbiting Saturn. It culminates in a shocking discovery: the satellite is a giant alien being. Her name is Gaea. Her awesome interior is mind-boggling - because it is a mind. A mind that calls out to explorers...and transforms all who enter.

Download more titles in John Varley's Gaea series, including book 2, Wizard, and book 3, Demon.

My apologies, I wrote my review on book 2 and meant it to be on book 1!

I read a lot of SciFi and this book was a good listen. The narrators voice was a bit difficult for me at first, but once I got used to her, she was actually a very good story teller. The book was written in 1979, so some of the themes are quite dated (The Soviet Union for example), however while dated, it was an entertaining read. I have just purchased the second book and will be listening to it right after I finish Neil Gaiman's latest book.

I've long been a fan of Varley's work and was thrilled to find they'd found a good *female* narrator for the Gaea trilogy. She handles the different "voices" of the different characters quite well, though after awhile the plainsong dialog of the Titanide language got on my nerves. I'm not sure how she could have given a vocal flavor otherwise, and it's densest in the first book before the Titanides learn English. So, that's really the only quite minor drawback.

The whole trilogy is excellently-written and this is quite a worthy performance.

Titan is the first part of the classic Gaea Trilogy which in my humble opinion is the Lord of the Rings of Sci-fi. Consider an insane goddess obsessed with Earth religions and Hollywood cinema who creates new kinds of creatures for her amusement and alleviates her boredom by dropping humans from bottomless elevators, offering miracles to pilgrims in return for heroics, and inciting thermonuclear wars. It has amorous blimps and submarines, holy zombies, smiling cattle, a giant Marilyn Monroe, and a story thread that would honor Joseph Campbell with the rise of the hero, the hero's fall, and the hero's redemption. I've long been convinced that Cirocco Jones must have been the inspiration for Alien's Ellen Ripley (although both appeared about the same time), and her partner Gaby the inspiration of Xena's Gabrielle. They're just too darn close. Of course I was thrilled when I spotted the series on Audible and I snatched it right up. I took a little time getting used to the narrator whose clean and even voice at first reminded me of an advanced text-to-speech program, but (except for giving Dulcimer an Irish accent... in the story I think it was supposed to be limited to the miracles line!) she has a comfortable voice and does fine work with the voices of Gaby, Cirrocco, and the others. Although the books can stand on their own, they work best taken sequentially with Titan giving the introductions, Wizard the tragedies, and Demon the triumphs. Titan starts the series a bit slowly, but Wizard and Demon are worth repeated reads. I recommend them.

This review covers the entire trilogy. In the past 20 years, I read the entire trilogy 3 times. I was so delighted when I discovered that Audible had recorded an unabridged version of all three books. I had never heard of the narrator before, but it only took me about a minute of listening to realize that no one else could have done a better job. Ms. Johnson read this book as if she positively loved it! I don't know if she did or not, but her tone of voice was so expressive, even when reading simple narration as opposed to conversation, that I had to think she was enjoying the reading of the books as much as I was enjoying the listening. I'm not going to provide any "spoiler alerts", but I do think that some things got a little bit over the top in Demon (Book 3). But I enjoyed a world in which there was a God that could actually be approached and who made some extremely interesting creatures. For the most part, the book was well-paced and the main characters and most of the minor ones were well-defined. I was sorry to see the series end. But it did end at an appropriate point. I know a book is good when I am glad to be in a traffic jam so that I can listen to more of it. And this book made me want to drive in rush hour all the time. I am definitely going to look for more books narrated by Ms. Johnson!

This story I read many years ago and loved it then so when I found it on Audible I was very excited. This is a classic from an old master, from the beginning days of Syfy we get the best of the travel to the stars and finding other races that are so original you would never in a million years expect what comes your way in this series! Gaia is a real person, she's not JUST A GODDESS! I found myself holding my breath as the story I read many years ago came to life again with this narrator. If you have ever dreamed of going to the stars....this series is for you. If you have not...this story is still for you! Everyone will relate to the beginning of a new journey...a fantastic journey!

And loved the entire series again in audio. The characters are compelling and the world of Gaea is inventive and the creatures Gaea made inspired by Earth movies are wonderful. The Titanides are centaurs with a complex reproductive system involving up to 4 parents and they are particularly appealing. They use the names of the Greek musical modes (Aeolian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian) coupled with the words "solo", "duet", "trio" or "quartet" to describe the number of parents the individual has, and the ways in which genetic material is transferred between them. They are also brightly colored with intricate patterns.
I never forgot the Titanides or the Blimps or Cirroco Jones from my early reading of the trilogy and it was great fun to relive the experience in the audio version.

Imagine a hollow living ringworld in our solar system, complete with an ecology, mythical centaurs, arians, biological aircraft, riddled with lesser gods, and with living earth references throughout, and run by an almost immortal and insane queen? Now throw in earth explorers that enter this world in the midst of a planet-wide war, and become pawns in a much bigger plan that...

There, enough. I red this in its first printing. All three books. And they're awesome. VERY different. Extremely unique. And at the same time, epic storytelling.

Between the excellent character development, strong plot lines, deep descriptive writing without being weighty, and zero boredom, this is definitely worth your time to listen.

John Varley has a solid body of work, but I consider this this series to be his crowning achievement.

Of course the story is a fabulous classic of Sci Fi adventure, but Allyson Johnson makes it so much fun! She is easy to listen to and her creative ideas of how to make you hear each character is truly wonderful!! You will really enjoy listening to this set of Varley classics as Ms Johnson's voice enhances the humor and adventure of the stories now put to voice so beautifully. Thank you Ms Johnson!!

I'm a politically conservative, technologically inclined, open-minded, all American citizen of this great terrestrial ball we call home. I keep my head in the clouds, I love Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels but I keep my feet on the ground, I stay informed on news and current events, and I love the fact that I can still form and express my own opinions in this great nation we call The Untied States.

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